USMCA won’t die in 2026 — but it’s entering a new, uncertain phase, RGV trade expert says

The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement isn’t going away. But after the United States declined this summer to lock in another 16 years of the deal, the pact that underpins trillions of dollars in North American trade has entered uncharted territory — one defined by annual reviews, ongoing bilateral negotiations and a level of uncertainty that is already reshaping business decisions in the Rio Grande Valley.

That’s the assessment of Jorge Torres, president of Interlink Trade Services and a licensed customs broker, who discussed the state of USMCA in a recent episode of the RGV Business Journal podcast with host Naxiely Lopez-Puente.

“It’s not that it ends; it just triggers that yearly revision process,” Torres said.

USMCA took effect July 1, 2020, replacing NAFTA, and included something no prior U.S. free trade agreement had: a mandatory joint review on the pact’s sixth anniversary, followed by a decision on whether to extend it for another 16 years. That review took place July 1, 2026, and it did not go the way Mexico and Canada had hoped. In a statement issued after the review, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the United States did not agree to renew USMCA in its current form, and as a result, the agreement was not renewed.